Edie didn’t consider herself unfortunate. Nor did she consider her pregnancy unlucky, or even unusual. She’d always been fertile. Even a one-off, unwanted coupling was more than likely to prove fruitful. And Edie wanted this child. She missed her babies. She knew she’d never see them again. They’d been taken to somewhere far away and she’d have no idea where to find them. But no-one was going to take this baby away.

Not this baby’s fault its father’s a pig, she’d think as she paraded her swollen belly with pride, boldly meeting the eyes of her rapist. And Missus Jill, she help me keep this baby, ’cos Missus Jill know I want this baby. Missus Jill know who done it, too. She don’t say so, but she know all right.

When the child was born, delivered by none other than Nurse Jill Delaney herself, Edie was so glad it was a girl.

‘I’m namin’ my baby after you, Missus Jill,’ she said.

Many years later, when Edie told Val her story, the figure of Nurse Jill Delaney featured prominently.

‘She got a real pretty voice that Missus Jill,’ Edie said. ‘Kinda sing-song, you know? She tell me it’s the Irish in her. Her proper name Delaney, but I call her Missus Jill ’cos we was real good friends her and me. She help me keep my baby.’

And Jill Delaney had. She’d not filled out the reports that would have seen the little girl taken from her mother. And although, at an early age, Palm Island children were removed from their parents to live in separate dormitories, she’d ensured mother and child saw each other regularly. She’d even assigned the little girl to work in the laundry alongside her mother.

‘She save our lives, that woman,’ Edie declared. ‘A right angel she is, that Missus Jill. And Missus Jill, she know who raped me. She never tell me she knows, but I know she knows. And that bloke, that pig guard, he long gone by the time my Jill’s askin’ about her dad.’ Edie’s face broke into the broadest grin. She’d thoroughly enjoyed unburdening herself to the best friend she’d ever had. She’d never unburdened herself before and she’d found the experience most liberating.

‘And then we come to Townsville, my little Jill and me,’ she said. ‘And then we meet you. And now all goin’ good as good can be.’

That was the secret Val and Edie shared – a past unknown to young Jill. Not only the rape, but the whole of Edie’s life. Edie had painted a past for her daughter that was sheer fantasy.